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Perspectives | Revenue

Is the events industry dead? Not by a long shot.

Periods of intense crisis often lead to innovation, and 2020 is no exception. In the year of the Covid-19 pandemic, the media industry faces a new threat to revenue: the disappearance of in-person events and the need to rapidly pivot to protect revenue. 

The cancellations of industry conferences and trade shows between March and May resulted in a loss of at least $2.3 billion in show organizer revenue, according to the Center for Exhibition Industry Research. The total impact to the economy was at least $14 billion.

While that’s true, audiences have shown they are ready to engage with digital communities and premium content. Sponsors and exhibitors also recognize the value of digital data. While the shift in the events model is daunting, it presents new opportunities for subscription-based revenue and memberships and alternative sources of revenue with digital innovation. In fact, media companies may actually have more paths to revenue as they emerge from the crisis. 

We work with some of the biggest names in media, entertainment, technology, retail and information services on digital transformation and product development. One thing we do is help them pivot to a virtual events model. That includes improving their conferences sites, and enhancing their digital ecosystem (the technologies that connect their community with content and data). 

These companies are redesigning their events to accommodate travel restrictions, social distancing, and new virtual consumers. Virtual events have become a necessity in the near term, whether for trade shows, conferences or entertainment, and they have also become a long-term strategic opportunity for industry leaders. But the solution isn’t just shifting the venue to Zoom. Premium, memorable, and customized experiences are more important in a virtual world.

The future of events

Here is our vision of what the future of events could look like in the coming months and years: 

In person and online

The events industry is already pivoting quickly in response to new demands and trends, and the industry will be led by software and data-driven companies that connect people, both in person and digitally. As different areas reopen, physical events will regain their importance. However, in-person events will be only one important part of a continuous conversation with audiences. Value will be provided to the community throughout the year, empowered by digital experiences and engagement. 

Value and pricing

The events of the future will deviate from single ticket purchases to membership, tiered access, VIP content, and online certifications and learning opportunities. Post-pandemic events will be multi-platform, multi-device, and simultaneously virtual and in-person. They will be supplemented by micro-events, curated content experiences, and educational and training opportunities.

Monetization

Data monetization and digital products are critical to future events revenue. By now, every leading company in the world is either a native software and data company. Or, like Fortune, GE, Disney and the NFL, they are evolving to become one. As these companies have found, digitization has the opportunity not just to reclaim lost revenue but to create new revenue sources and diversified revenue streams. 

The “digital venue” is unconstrained by scale and opens up new and lucrative opportunities. Those that will succeed  in the events space will be the ones who seize the opportunity to build new digitally empowered business models that drive more predictable revenue for events companies, sponsors, and exhibitors.

Membership

Consider Fortune’s membership model. Community members pay for different levels of content access, virtual, live events and other networking experiences throughout the year. Fortune hosts exclusive in-person conferences annually, like the Most Powerful Women Next Gen Summit for rising women leaders, which has traditionally featured curated dinners and digital content supporting the event. The company has a similar model for aspiring CEOs. 

Fortune also hosts a number of regular, smaller virtual events, by industry and topic. By hosting weekly micro-events for its audiences, Fortune can create over 100 opportunities for sponsorship during a given year. Nothing replaces the value of gathering in person. However, digital venues and premium content support continuous conversation with audiences and create enduring value for sponsors. This is a model that will provide media and events companies with amplified value in the years to come. 

Sporting chance

Or consider the sports industry. The NFL makes money through ticket fees, certainly. However, it drives a majority of its revenue as a content company. Disney is also inspiring. A consumer pays to attend a Disney movie or gain admission to a theme park. But that same consumer also pays a regular fee for educational tools, online games and digital streaming services. Disney+ exceeded $20 million in revenue in just its first month of release. 

As we look to an events future that leverages the power of combining both digital and in-person offerings, companies will profit from data licensing and creating actionable data and sponsorships for audiences curated by demographics, purchasing power, and interest. 

Community

Event companies that build valuable micro-communities will thrive. With increased virtualization, there will be a greater need for people to have personalized and premium experiences in digital channels. Companies like Bevy are already capitalizing on this need by helping brands build and scale their digital communities. Bizly has pivoted from helping its clients plan and manage physical events, to planning and managing virtual events. Cameo enables celebrities to deliver personalized messages to fans. Crowdcast hosts interactive, live online conversations at scale. 

The future of events will be hybrid. A single physical event will be amplified by data and content experiences, all within one digital ecosystem. This is especially important when we consider younger, digitally native audiences. They are adept at navigating Fortnite, TikTok and Twitch. They are not confined by physical venues and expect seamless digital integration and community. This allows event companies to offer premium access to unique experiences and content.

It’s possible that some things will be lost in the transition – like the spontaneity of an in-person event, running into the right person at just the right time. Companies like Grip are trying to recreate this kind of spontaneity with intelligent event matchmaking software to develop lasting business relationships. It can certainly work: online dating companies have been using similar algorithms for years.

Value proposition

All this being said, the fundamental value proposition of what the events business is has not changed. Organizers still want to monetize the experience. Attendees want inspiring content, and they want to forge the connections that will help them and their businesses grow. Sellers still want to connect with buyers. 

But how these goals are accomplished will be different. Leaders will be the ones that understand these emerging trends and transition their models toward digital content, data and design. They will combine big events with curated micro-events. They will work with experienced digital partners to deliver content seamlessly across platforms and channels, and monetize data and insights with machine learning. The digital ecosystems that empower digital content, marketing, and premium experiences across platforms will become a source of competitive advantage. 

The media events industry is not out of business. In fact, it is already finding more lucrative, scalable opportunities. The challenge is deciding where to start, because the temptation will be to want to pursue all of these opportunities. The companies that succeed will be customer-focused. They will build for a narrow set of business outcomes. They will experiment. They will have the wisdom to know when to sustain or pivot. And they will manically focus on minimizing the time it takes for them to realize value. With these goals at the forefront, the media events industry could undergo a remarkable transformation. 

Featured Post | Revenue

How Kumu’s Roland Ros partners with media companies for commerce and community

Global interactive platforms such as TikTok may strike a chord with younger audiences. Still, they miss the opportunity to drive hyper-local content and shape tight-knit transnational communities. It’s a significant and growing gap that Kumu, a Filipino-centric social app and livestreaming platform, seeks to fill with customized content channels. The combination of communication, commerce, and community allows fans to interact and purchase products while watching their favorite livestreamers.

It’s a smart move when platforms everywhere on the planet are forging relationships to become Super Apps. But content will be the factor that sets some of these Super Apps apart. By cultivating relationships with media companies and content creators, they can reach audiences with entertaining content that inspires lasting passion, not just one-off purchases.

It’s a blueprint that makes business sense for companies lining up to engage Internet-addicted populations in emerging markets. Boston Consulting Group’s Center for Customer Insight forecasts that Internet users in emerging markets, which include India, Indonesia, Kenya, Morocco Nigeria and the Philippines, will contribute 3x the number of new Internet users compared to developed markets. It’s a young community that will engage in “digitally influenced” content. They’ll also make purchases worth a whopping $4 trillion by 2022.

Continuing our series of DCN video interviews, I talk to Roland Ros. Ros founded Kumu, a livestreaming app that counts a community of more than 5 million GenZ and Millennial Filipinos spread across more than 50 countries. Kumu recently raised $5 million in a Series A funding round led by an impressive mix of investors including OpenSpace Ventures, Summit Media, and Philippines-based media conglomerate ABS-CBN. We discuss the importance of trusted conversations and the efforts of media companies, including Cosmopolitan and Esquire, to unlock the creative and commercial potential of its growing and global audience.

Here are three key takeaways from our talk:

Power community-driven commerce with authenticity and positivity

Younger audiences are eager to participate (and purchase) on platforms that make them feel involved and accepted. “GenZ and Millenials are tired of the social anxiety that comes with pretending life is perfect,” Ros explains. Authenticity has replaced attention as members no longer value millions of likes or hundreds of thousands of followers. The payoff is positivity, he says.  Kumu’s “Kumunity” appreciates “microtransactions and virtual gifts that simply say ‘thank you’ for the content you create.”

Segment according to journeys, not customers

Ros encourages companies to rewrite the marketing playbook to emphasize the “aha” moments that keep audiences everywhere hooked. To pinpoint these events, he relies on CleverTap to track behaviors, patterns and architect a customer journey to make each member feel like an individual. “The logic has to be clean: if this, then that.” Building these capabilities has allowed Kumu to reach “month four retention rates in the 40% range,” he says.

Micro-influencers have a massive impact

Ros reveals the fastest-growing business on the Kumu platform is driven by influencers and creators on the platform talking about their passions and interests. This realization has prompted him to partner with media companies to launch “the concept of an interactive social television network,” amplifying the content and content creators the community loves.

Ros also talks about blending content and commerce to pave the way for “Super Social Apps” fueled by connection and microtransactions. He also lifts a lid on the best practices that allow Kumu and its partners to reach “up to 10%” conversion rates for livestreaming commerce on the platform. 

Watch the full interview:

Perspectives | Revenue

Countering the revenue loss caused by ad blockers

In the last few months, ad blocking has taken a backseat in industry conversations and in the minds of publishers as they grapple with more immediate concerns, such as the revenue disruption caused by Covid-19 and Google’s decision to block third-party cookies by 2022.

Even though it doesn’t feel quite as pressing, ad blocking is probably a more persistent threat to publisher’s revenues than either of the aforementioned. In this article, we’re going to review the current state of ad blocking, see how publishers can estimate their revenue leakage, and discuss the pros and cons of the commonly available ad block countermeasures.

The state of ad blocking

According to the Global Ad-Blocking behavior report by GlobalWebIndex, 47% of users globally use an ad blocker today. There are many reasons why users choose to install ad blockers, such as constantly being bombarded with ads, the ads being annoying, irrelevant, or intrusive, and ads taking up too much screen space. There are also region-specific drivers of ad block usage. For instance, the mobile ad blocking rate is especially high in the APAC region. That’s because many users access the internet using 2G networks, and saving data bandwidth is a priority.

According to predictions made by Ovum, the revenue loss to publishers could be anywhere between $16 billion to $78 billion in 2020, depending on how actively publishers adopt (or don’t adopt) ad block countermeasures. Industry groups such as the Coalition for Better Ads help stakeholders in the ad tech industry align towards the long-term goal of making ads faster and less intrusive. But for now, most publishers are left to their own devices when it comes to figuring out how much revenue they’re losing and what they can do about it.

Estimating revenue loss

Once you have some basic information about your website, it’s actually pretty straightforward to estimate the revenue loss that you may be currently incurring. Here’s what you need:

  • Monthly pageviews
  • Average ad density (number of ads per page)
  • Average eCPM
  • Ad block rate (in percentage)

There are both free and paid JS scripts and analytics tools available in the market that you can use to track the percentage of ad block users among your visitors. If you just want a rough estimate, you can also review your country-specific traffic data and then apply the regional ad block rates to calculate the average adblock rate for your entire inventory.

Let’s assume a publisher receives 15 million monthly pageviews, with an average eCPM of $2.8, ad density of 3, and ad block rate of 28%. In this case, the revenue loss can be calculated as (28/100)*(5000000*2.8*3/1000) = $35,280/month or $423,360/year. (Here’s an adblock recovery calculator we designed to make this easier.) 

It’s important to note that revenue loss due to ad blockers grows in direct proportion to traffic. So, it may not be worth the effort for a publisher with less than 1 million monthly PVs to implement ad block countermeasures. However, larger publishers cannot afford to ignore the opportunity.

Countermeasure strategies

Messaging

Have you ever visited a site that asked you to turn off your ad blocker? That’s an example of a messaging-based ad block countermeasure. Whitelist requests are another example of this category of ad block countermeasures. Other variations include calls-to-donation, offering an ad-free pass, or selling a paid subscription with metered or unmetered paywalls. All of these are intended to offset the revenue loss caused by ad blockers. Messaging is a great way to establish one-on-one communication channels with your visitors. You can educate them about your business needs, and ask them to take specific actions to support you.

Circumvention

As suggested by the name, ad block circumvention solutions focus on trying to identify and circumvent ad blockers. Or, in simpler terms, they try to block the ad blockers. Ad block circumvention vendors essentially play whack-a-mole with ad blockers. They find loopholes in their scripts or delivery and exploit them. 

In response, ad block vendors frequently update their code to bypass circumvention. This makes ad block circumvention less reliable as a technique than other forms of ad block countermeasures. Circumvention also ignores the underlying problems that cause users to install blockers. And, for this reason, the vendors that provide this technology have fallen out of favor in developed markets.

Ad recovery via Acceptable Ads

Almost half of all internet users who use ad blockers use AdBlock and AdBlock Plus. The German company that makes these products, eyeo GmbH, runs a program called Acceptable Ads that allows publishers to serve less intrusive ad formats to a segment of opted-in users of participating ad block extensions, browsers, and content blockers. Ad recovery was envisioned as a middle ground between the legitimate needs of internet users and the business needs of advertisers and publishers. In terms of effectiveness, ad recovery usually beats messaging. That’s because it allows publishers to recover a larger part of their inventory, instead of just relying on the users who agree to grant their whitelist request or buy their ad-free pass.

Continued experimentation 

If there’s one thing that we can all agree on, it’s that ad blocking is here to stay. Users have more choice than ever when it comes to installing an ad blocker, whether that’s in the form of a native feature of privacy-focused browsers, third-party extensions, or mobile apps. The specific usage patterns on different devices may wax and wane over the years. But as a fundamental choice, ad blocking is now a permanent fixture of the ad tech landscape.

When ad blocking usage first took off, publishers did not have a lot of options to protect themselves against the cost of ad blocking. However, over the years, different forms of ad block countermeasures have emerged, which work with varying degrees of efficacy. The long-term solution to ad blocking still lies in respecting user choice and making advertising simpler, faster, and less intrusive. Until that happens, publishers need to keep experimenting with ways to protect their revenue by educating users and delivering better advertising experiences.

Featured Post | Innovation | Revenue

How three media companies are approaching virtual events and monetization

Many media companies have turned to virtual events as a way to engage audiences on a personal level during the pandemic. From webinars to virtual festivals, teams have worked to evolve their offerings as the long-term outlook for physical events remains uncertain.

The Financial Times, The Atlantic, and Bloomberg, are among media companies that produce events as one of their diversified revenue streams. They are also among those that have had to evolve their revenue strategy as their teams hit their stride with virtual events.

Maturing virtual events strategies

In March, FT Live went from being completely focused on physical events to virtual in just days. As a test, they launched The Global Economic Emergency webinar. And with just three days of promotion, they racked up over 7,000 attendees who logged in to watch.

“We had these huge numbers, and it was a bit of a lightbulb moment for us,” explained Orson Francescone, the Managing Director of FT Live. “We quickly realized that we could do something bigger and bolder.”

Weeks later, the company launched The Global Boardroom. The three-day event featured 110 remote speakers and boasted 52,000 registrations. The event focused on the impact of coronavirus on policy, business, and finance. And it was so popular that a second edition is scheduled for November.

The Atlantic has seen similar success with online registrants, with over 20,000 attendees attending their 28 virtual events. “It’s a larger audience than we would have been able to convene in person,” said Aretae Wyler, COO of The Atlantic. “It’s more international, and we’re seeing the same caliber of attendees.”

Bloomberg faced a different challenge with virtual events, as they already had an established Bloomberg TV offering. For them, it wasn’t a matter of a pivot to video. Rather, it was creating a distinct experience and value proposition for a new offering. This meant the focus for its virtual events had to be on the level of interaction attendees could have, and what the value would be for sponsors.

“Once we got crisp on these elements…what we needed from a platform, resource, and process perspective became self-evident,” Bloomberg Live’s Global Head Patrick Garrigan explained. “Not only are our audiences tuning in, they’re staying with us and engaging.”

The value for sponsors

For Bloomberg Live, attracting sponsors came down to the basics of why clients support events in-person. “We distil it down to three core attributes: thought leadership, brand awareness, and content creation and amplification,” said Garrigan. “Similar to in-person, it then becomes a matter of identifying how our platform can deliver on these metrics.”

Bloomberg delivers this by creating sponsor “moments” throughout its virtual programs, as well as allowing sponsors to share the perspectives of their senior leaders. They then share segments from the events widely across Bloomberg channels.

For the FT, it is their technology stack – as well as their access to large global audiences – that has been a key selling point for sponsors. Early on, the team focused on ensuring they had a strong analytics functionality in place. 

“We can analyze who is attending, what stage of the event, how they are engaging, and serve this intelligence to our sponsors,” Francescone outlined. “Sponsors really enjoy our platform because it’s giving them, from an ROI point of view, much bigger and more detailed numbers than in a physical environment.”

Big numbers are also a draw for The Atlantic’s sponsors. The publisher is gearing up for The Atlantic Festival in September which will be entirely virtual, and free to attend. Whereas they would normally have 3,000 in-person attendees, the team is targeting between one and 2 million registrants for the virtual version. 

Sponsor interest has grown as The Atlantic’s confidence in their model and ability to pull in high-caliber attendees. “Most of the sponsors that we have worked with in-person have been interested in trying this model with us,” said Wyler. “Part of that is the belief they have in our power to convene and engage audiences. We’ve maintained a 75% average watch time for our audience, which is pretty incredible.”

Reader revenue and data

When it comes to audience revenue, the FT is now charging delegates for all its events from autumn onwards. But for the second edition of its Global Boardroom event in November, FT Live is taking a freemium approach. 

The event has three tiers of ticketing. First, they’ll offer a free pass which gives live access to talks, Q&As and polls. A  $65 pass provides on-demand access to all talks and summary reports. The professional pass, at $385, adds 1-1 networking, exclusive access to extra sessions, and a business community area.

Beyond ticket sales, the FT sees long-term opportunities for the newly engaged data. “Of the 52,000 people we had attending The Global Boardroom, about 75% were completely new to us,” said Francescone. These attendees can be monetized not just through the event, but as part of the FT’s core subscription strategy. 

The Atlantic also sees opportunity in bringing in new subscribers. “We are constantly thinking about how this can be a driver of subscription growth,” Wyler emphasized. “The benefit of virtual events is that it’s an opportunity to convene both the superfans, but also to introduce The Atlantic to new audiences.”

In previous years, tickets to the in-person Atlantic Festival have ranged from $50 to $975. However, registration to the virtual Festival in September this year is free. That said, there will be subscriber-only benefits like exclusive sessions and Q&A opportunities to bring value to existing subscribers and entice new joiners.

Bloomberg has historically not charged for its events. However, the exception is their Bloomberg Breakaway CEO membership community, where virtual events have been leveraged as part of the membership package.

“We’ve created content that is exclusively for members. It gives them the tools, best practices, and essential feedback to grapple with the issues that are impacting business,” said Garrigan, highlighting the opportunity to provide another touchpoint to members through virtual events.

The future of virtual business events

Garrigan sees virtual events being a part of Bloomberg Live’s programming for the foreseeable future. “Given Bloomberg Media’s global footprint, virtual events are such a natural fit,” he said. “While we are incredibly eager to get back to in-person events as soon as it’s safe to do so…[virtual events] serve as a way to connect broad geographies in real-time that may not be able to join us in-room.”

For FT Live, their early success gave the team the confidence to run events for the rest of the year in a digital form. But for 2021, they are being cautious. Francescone suspects that they will iterate towards a hybrid event model. However, details (such as access and pricing) are still to be determined.

“We’ve set up a small internal task force within FT Live which is examining what the future is going to look like,” he explained. “What people’s preferences might be today might not be the same not only in five  years’ time, but in months or even weeks.”

These publishers may have the scale that makes it easier to convince top-tier sponsors to get on board, but there are lessons for publishers of all sizes. Virtual events offer a wider audience and higher engagement than in-person events, whether that be hundreds or thousands of attendees. 

As for reader revenue, features like on-demand viewing or virtual networking can be sold as an add-on, or as a subscriber-only benefit. The key is being flexible in your offerings and understanding what your audience will respond to as the situation evolves.

Advertising | Revenue

Podcast ads: a bright spot in the dim digital advertising sector

Covid-19 has hobbled untold sectors, and advertising is one of them. In July, two research outfits revised their industry growth estimates in negative directions. The lone bright spot among the various advertising channels is podcasting. Originally targeted to expand by 30% this year, IAB/PwC halved its estimate. However, that still equates to more than $100 million in net expansion. Indeed, brands are slated to spend nearly $1 billion on podcast advertising in the U.S. in 2020.

By contrast, the total global advertising category – inclusive of TV, print, radio, digital and out of home – will contract by 9% this year. This is according to fresh estimates from Zenith’s Advertising Expenditure Forecast report, published on July 27. Brands slashed ad budgets most aggressively in Western Europe and in the out-of-home category. But no geographic region and only a couple of formats (podcasting, digital) have been spared. 

Solid fundamentals fuel podcasting’s (relatively) rosy forecasts

Given the uncertainty and fragility of global economic conditions, we’re all firmly in the “any non-catastrophic news is good news” camp. (Unless you work at Goldman Sachs, of course, which makes gobs of cash so long as the sun rises, but that’s a topic for another day.) That said, podcasting’s fundamentals have been headed in the right direction for several years now. 

I first wrote about podcast advertising strategies for DCN in March 2019, and favorably. While growth has been healthy since, the market has by no means taken off. However, a confluence of factors could facilitate a podcasting growth spurt in the next few years. 

Experienced advertisers make up a big chunk of the market
 Direct-to-consumer (“DTC”) and financial services brands generate more than one-third of advertising activity. These companies can serve as an important anchor for the category moving forward. They both understand advertising and take a long view of their programs.

Spotify is driving changes in habits with both consumers & advertisers
It would be incorrect to claim that Spotify is betting its future on podcasting. But it’s definitely a meaningful part of their strategy. In July, the company reported both increasing consumer engagement with podcasts – up over 100% year over year – and has committed to the format in a big way. To wit: the company invested hundreds of millions of dollars over the past year into deals with organizations such as The Ringer (Bill Simmons’ venture), The Joe Rogan Experience, and Omnicom.

It’s a small market
Because it’s currently a niche market, positive growth rates should be easy to maintain. Brands spend more than $200 billion every year on advertising in the US and carve out less than .5% of budgets for podcasting. So podcasting will not fuel ad industry growth and sustenance for the next decade. But it is well-positioned to be a consistently positive storyline. 

What brands need to be concerned about 

As is the case with most nascent markets, there are reasonable questions about podcasting’s future that linger. 

Staying power
As Digiday’s Pierre Bienaimé explains, “The question of whether podcasts have hit the American mainstream is kind of like asking the same about Major League Soccer.” The advertising industry has been waiting for podcasting to ‘pop’ for several years now, and the reasons for why it hasn’t persist.

Standardized success metrics
Podcasting’s performance metrics are more akin to traditional (offline) advertising formats than digital ones, such as audience size and awareness. This issue needs to be reconciled by media companies to facilitate growth.

Discoverability
Even experienced podcast listeners often have difficulty both locating a new pod they are aware of and ‘shopping’ for new ones. Pods need to be as easy to find as a website or social media account. 

A promising future

While it would be inaccurate to say that podcasting is in full-on growth mode, the format is showing signs of long-term viability. Over the past decade, its evolution has been characterized by fits and starts, but crossing the billion dollar market size threshold this year is notable. 

Alan Osetek, former global CEO of Resolution Media – an Omnicom company and one of the largest search advertising companies in the world – is cautiously bullish. “I’m a huge fan of podcasting, but it’s suffered from an identity crisis. It’s not quite ‘digital’ because it isn’t really a direct response tactic, and that’s what’s been driving online ad growth for 20 years.” 

He goes on, “but podcasting isn’t really ‘offline’, either, since most people listen via smartphones. I just think it took brands awhile to figure out how to deploy the tactic within the overall marketing mix. Now that they’ve done that, I believe podcasting is here to stay. And I wouldn’t have said that as recently as a couple of years ago.”

About the author

Tim Bourgeois is a marketing advisor who helps brands optimize ROI on advertising, technology and agency investments through media audits and strategy engagements.

Advertising | Revenue

Don’t drive blind: Use benchmarks to navigate digital advertising

A day in the life of Advertising/Revenue operations may sound monotonous, but no challenge is solved in exactly the same manner. Today’s redirects and malvertising attacks are very different from tomorrow’s inflammatory content or phishing schemes. It’s time to change course in ad operations, and take a route guided by a publisher-specific benchmark.

Privacy regulations and increasingly sophisticated attacks are becoming ever more prominent in digital advertising. So, publishers must shut down risks that negatively impact monetization efforts, or worse, drive regulatory penalties.  Industry benchmarks allow you to assess your digital property’s distinct risk profile.

Understanding the risks

Raising awareness of these risks across media publishers is imperative. During the past six months, continuous scanning of dozens of B2C websites across a variety of industry segments uncovered the third-party code risks dwelling in their respective digital ecosystems.

For U.S. Media publishers, here’s what The Media Trust discovered during the past six months:

Security risks:
  • 92% of executing code is attributed to third-party code, up from 81% in 2019
  • 18% domain variability, reflecting the percentage of new domains to the publisher’s site compared to the previous month
Privacy Protection risks:
  • on average, ~1,500 cookies are dropped on user devices every time they access a media site, a factor that should be included in assessing CCPA compliance
  • 37% of those cookies have a lifespan greater than 12 months, a violation according to existing regulatory regimes, including CNIL’s “French Cookie Law”
  • We find decades-long lifespan cookies from reputable partners every day across these properties, some approaching an 8,000+ year lifespan 
 Performance risks:
  • 1.6MB is the JavaScript file size, approximately 60% more than the generally recommended 1MB polite limit
  • 5.66 seconds is the aggregate total load time; if you’re experiencing page latency issues you should look at the contribution from third-party code 

Addressing the issues

Publishers can no longer ignore the risks associated with unmanaged third-party code. Unfortunately, investments in resources to build the perfect customer experience and drive revenue often lead to unacceptable malware attacks, redirects, unauthorized collection of personal data, and more. Benchmarks provide a clear means to pinpoint and remediate issues out-of-sync with industry peers.

Brand integrity, regulatory compliance, and the bottom line are at stake. Ad operations must implement strategies that will control unmanaged third-party code. In the same way that brands exercise supply path optimization (SPO) efforts to understand pathways that impact performance and drive revenue, publishers should focus on identifying those vendors that cause problems.

Using these industry benchmarks, publishers can pinpoint which code and which corresponding vendors disrupt your customer experience. The ability to distinguish between what will cause security, regulatory, and performance issues (malware, data breaches) versus what will annoy your users (redirects, PII scams, and poor ad quality) is the first step. 

The dangers of driving blind are self-evident. With benchmarks, ad operations teams can change their processes to focus on the vendors that cause problems, and better navigate a path to success.

Advertising | Revenue

Server-side tech will drive the future of publisher digital advertising revenue

Every war produces collateral damage. And the browser wars are no exception. 

For years, publishers reactively adjusted their monetization strategies based on browser changes to accommodate a rapidly changing landscape in the name of revenue preservation. Many publishers rely on client-side bidding via web browsers to monetize their sites, despite lackluster performance and unpleasant side effects. These include clunky, slow loading sites, personally identifiable information (PII) vulnerability, and interruptive, obtrusive ad experiences.

The resulting situation is driving new publisher approaches – including server-side technology – that have a tremendous impact on their business. The industry is reeling from the economic impact of Covid-19, reacts to CCPA enforcement, and readies itself for the next phase of digital advertising. Yet at the same time, publishers must address certain fundamental technology blockers in the name of reclaiming their monetization strategy and futureproofing their ad revenue through server-side technology.

Let’s assess how investment in server-side solutions will catalyze greater autonomy, sustainability and innovation for publishers in the long run.

Client-side vs. server-side bidding

In client-side header bidding, also known as browser-side header bidding, publishers take their inventory to multiple demand partners as impressions become available. Ad requests are sent to demand partners to place their bids. The highest bid is selected and the winning bidder’s ad is displayed. Code, or JavaScript (JS), lives on the publisher’s page and is executed on users’ browsers when they visit the website.

With server-side header bidding, auction logic is executed on a server. The user’s browser makes a single request to the server, which sends and receives all bid requests. Once the bid is sold, the ad is displayed without affecting page load time.

The browser is not your friend

Many publishers rely on client-side bidding for site monetization through digital advertising. However, the dynamics aren’t always in their best interest.

  • Poor User Experience Due to Latency: JS and ad tags are notoriously slow. That’s because they’re dependent on the number of ad slots and prioritization of when and how they load. Slow load times result in jumpy, inconsistent content, poor browsing UX, and attrition as a result of reloading or exiting the page.
  • Non-Data Regulation Compliance: Ad tags in and of themselves are not inherently non-compliant. However, the tag, not the publisher, determines what data is sent to a partner. If code sends data to another partner without explicit user consent, publishers are susceptible to substantial privacy legislation enforcement. Publishers that do not own all of the code on their page are at risk for non-compliance.
  • Browser Overreliance: Browsers serve as a home base for publisher audiences, auctions, rendering and more. With continual shifts in browser dynamics, there’s escalating opportunity cost associated with publisher over-reliance on an environment in which they exert minimal control.

Some of the browser-based workarounds publishers leverage today likely won’t be viable tomorrow. To extricate themselves from the dynamics of client-side bidding, publishers should invest in server-side technology that will lay the groundwork for monetization innovation in the future. 

The solution is server-side

Server-side technology will ultimately be a catalyst for publishers to reclaim autonomy, sustainability, and control of monetization today and well into the future. There are three chief benefits of server-side technology that pave the road for publisher success:

  • Optimal User Experience: Server-side technology, like content distribution networks (CDNs), preserves the user experience by enabling publishers to optimize sites for faster load times and lower latency. The result? Improved UX and prioritization of when and how ads load. The faster the pages load, the better the user experience will be. And better UX translates to persistent, returning audiences that can be monetized. The introduction of CDN edge computing transitions decisioning around each ad unit – how auctions are managed and when units load–to publishers themselves. This results in optimal monetization and UX. 
  • Identity Solutions: The end of third-party cookies on Chrome is less than two years away. Server-side solutions position publishers for their next phase of innovation: solving for audience and attribution. With the decline of the 3rd party cookie, identifying, targeting and attributing actions to website visitors becomes increasingly challenging. Newfound autonomy will extract publishers from the browser wars. It will also facilitate implementation of identity solutions like publisher first-party identifiers or LiveRamp’s Authenticated Traffic Solution (ATS). This improves addressability across the open web by matching known users to a persistent identifier and enabling marketers to target users in a privacy-first manner.
  • Control: With client-side bidding, publishers are beholden to decisioning they can’t control, like browsers blocking third-party cookies or the introduction of a new algorithm. But with server-side logic, publishers are empowered to build their own valuable walled gardens, where they determine the rules, dynamics and monetization strategy.

Long-term goals

Server-side solutions – like a prebid server – might result in temporary revenue decline due to a departure from third-party cookie targeting. But that revenue is short-lived. Publishers are wise to play the long game. The innovation and revenue growth of server-side platforms like Amazon suggest the short-term inconvenience is far outweighed by the long-term reclaim of revenue control. 

To extricate themselves from browser dynamics, ensure data regulation compliance, build groundwork to preserve UX and preserve tomorrow’s monetization, publishers are wise to look to the server: Investing in server-side innovation today is the ultimate future-proofing for publishers’ businesses tomorrow.

Advertising | Research | Revenue

The next ad quality plot twist: Upholding user trust during the election season

Has 2020 been a difficult enough year for publishers? Well, get ready for another plot twist.

Election season in the U.S. has been heating up and will soon reach a boiling point. Both major political parties have amassed war chests to fuel their advertising campaigns. And this year’s race – just like a lot of things in 2020 – is shaping up to be unlike elections in the past.

Audiences in the U.S. are watching this race closely. And because new campaign messages and issues come out almost daily, there’s always something new to engage with. At the same time, the public’s trust in media is in jeopardy. Users are concerned that political content may contain misleading information. However, that concern leads them to distrust politicians and media outlets themselves.

Publishers are working hard to create content audiences can trust, engage with deeply, and return to. The last thing they need is to see misleading or deceptive ads on their pages, undermining their efforts.

A fake ad problem

Recently, publishers had a crash course in building audience trust and engagement while combating “fake ads” – ads with misleading content, or that link out to misinformation or scams. Since the pandemic began, 67% of publishers said they’ve encountered either a “significant” or “great” amount of fake ads, according to a survey we recently conducted in conjunction with Digiday.

Additionally, publishers cite ads that lead to pages unrelated to the ad creative as their top concern. Furthermore, publishers report that they’re seeing a growing number of ads that contain misleading information in the ad content.

Now publishers need to use what they’ve learned to better manage the growing onslaught of political ads. Indeed, 51% of publishers say they expect to deal with deceptive political ads this year. And that’s not just publisher pessimism speaking. Facebook and CNN have both taken the Trump campaign to task for deceptive ads. And leading news publishers continually fact-check claims made by the Trump and Biden campaigns alike.

Business breakers

Quality ad content (and not just filling ad slots) must be part of a publisher’s revenue strategy. According to the aforementioned GeoEdge survey, 49% of advertisers say they have avoided or ended business partnerships with publishers because those pubs had hosted deceptive ads. Among publishers, 49% said that when users raised complaints over deceptive ads, the consequences for their own business was “severe” or “very severe.”

We already know this. Ad content, and not just filling ad slots, is part of revenue strategy.  Nearly 70% of publishers said they “encounter a moderate or large number of deceptive ads per week.” Almost half of advertisers say they have avoided pubs, or ended relationships with publishers, because of deceptive ads.

This should raise alarms: Traffic and engagement are what give publishers value to advertisers. But advertisers want more than just good traffic. Like users themselves, they want a trustworthy product, and the ads are part of the package.

Monitoring issues

That said, far too many publishers (36%) still rely primarily on manual methods for monitoring fake, deceptive and low-quality ads. And 56% say they spend a “moderate” or “large” amount of time blocking such ads. This may seem a bit old-fashioned. After all, publishers are aware that it’s possible to automate these processes. But then again, many of those automated solutions are themselves using old-fashioned, blunt-force methods. The fact that 83% of publishers accidentally block ads that meet their standards suggests they’re using outdated methods for blocking bad ads. The cutting edge of ad quality is far beyond all that.

Publishers would be best served to seek automated solutions that do the job right the first time and don’t require ops teams to do extra clean-up work. Blunt tools cause publishers to leave money on the table by screening out good ads along with the bad ads, and by keeping ops teams mired in the present and past rather than looking to the future.

This is no time to backtrack and solve yesterday’s ad quality problems when every day brings surprising new revenue and workflow challenges. Sharper ad quality tools allow publishers to block keywords, phrases and industry verticals automatically. They can then drill down, set detailed criteria, and really align ad content with page content. With all the upheaval the digital industry has experienced, programmatic channels are especially important for publishers’ revenue strategies. Those channels are where publishers can discover quality advertisers that can become trusted partners over time. 

Seeking solutions

Publishers need all the revenue they can get at this moment, and the election season puts a lot of revenue on the table. But to maximize this moment, publishers need precision in rooting out deceptive ads. They must go beyond automation and toward customization. There is a reputational and revenue risk in hosting deceptive ads, but our media reality demands a scalpel rather than a mallet to separate misleading from legit political ads.

One final reminder: This election season will be highly digital. The pandemic is keeping users at home, even more wired in than usual. Campaign events that would normally be held in person mostly moving online. Publishers need this engagement to drive revenue and attract quality advertisers. And engagement needs audience trust: trustworthy page content and ad content together.

Now is the time to develop a customized approach to ad quality. It must be tailored to the publisher’s content and audience, with a steady eye on user experience. This is best achieved with the assistance of ad quality partners who can be just as responsive and offer customizable solutions. The election’s exact plotline will be impossible to predict, and the stakes for engagement and monetization are high.

Publishers need to devote their resources to producing content audiences can rely on and to developing a framework for maintaining ad quality as early as possible. Of course, publishers don’t need to handle the heavy lifting on their own. A good ad quality partner will have the technology to automate monitoring and blocking deceptive ads. Sophisticated, nuanced, proactive service helps ensure that publishers can block the deceptive ads that undermine their work, and let in the quality ads and advertisers that help publishers keep moving toward the future.

Featured Post | Revenue

How Vox Media and The Atlantic are building reader revenue

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted every sector of the global economy, and digital publishing is no exception. The virus and the resulting lockdowns have depressed ad spend  and changed consumer behavior. It has also forced publishers to rethink foundational aspects of a business model that was already under pressure. For many publishers, the pandemic has increased these pressures and accelerated trends that were already on the horizon. In particular, it has hastened the need to shift to a greater reliance on subscription revenue.

In recent years, publishers have worked to diversify their revenue streams. However, the pandemic has challenged this revenue remix as advertising rates have fallen precipitously and live events remain off the table for the foreseeable future. At the same time, media companies have seen spikes in traffic as consumers seek out information about the virus or new content to pass the time in lockdown.

We spoke to two leading digital publishers that have been successfully navigating this period of change. We discussed how the pandemic has impacted their subscription programs, their strategies for converting new readers into paying subscribers, and how they plan to maximize retention.

Two reader revenue models

Corinne Osnos manages Audience Strategy at Vox Media. The digital publisher operates a portfolio of properties across multiple verticals and has not historically relied on reader revenue. Vox Media maintains a diversified revenue model across its portfolio that includes advertising, branded content, and commerce across print, digital, audio, and video content.

Last year, however, Vox acquired New York Media, which is heavily grounded in reader revenue from subscriptions. New York Magazine and its related digital properties – like Vulture, The Cut, and Intelligencer – use a metered paywall through which they allow readers to sample a limited amount of content before prompting them to subscribe. In April, Vox Media rolled out a reader contribution model on Vox.com to better leverage reader revenue for the network.

Emilie Harkin is Executive Director of Customer Growth at The Atlantic, a news, politics, and culture media brand. Launched as a print magazine in 1857, The Atlantic has extensive experience with reader revenue having relied primarily on subscriptions along with live events to support itself for over 160 years. In September of 2019, it rolled out a pay model for its digital property for the first time. Like New York Magazine, The Atlantic uses a metered paywall that gives readers a chance to try before they buy.

How they’re gaining

Both publications have seen significant traffic and subscriber growth since the start of the pandemic. According to Harkin, The Atlantic has seen subscriptions rise steadily since March, with growth outpacing pre-pandemic projections. She attributes this additional growth to the decision the magazine made in March to exempt its coronavirus content from the metered paywall. They provided readers with unlimited access to The Atlantic’s in-depth reporting on the virus.

“We felt really strongly that ungating our Coronavirus coverage was a public good,” Harkin said of the move. For now, The Atlantic plans to keep essential COVID coverage ungated indefinitely, replacing its paywall meter with hyperlinks that direct readers to a hub that aggregates all the magazine’s coronavirus coverage. Despite the decision to steer this new audience toward more free content, Harkin still credits The Atlantic’s pandemic journalism with driving growth across the magazine. 

People “wanted to see what The Atlantic had published about the Coronavirus. But we also saw that people did move from the Covid coverage to other areas of the site.”

New York Magazine is also seeing substantial subscriber growth in the time of Coronavirus. When asked to compare subscriber gains during the pandemic to pre-pandemic projections for 2020, Osnos points to April, during which the magazine saw its single largest month of subscriber growth on record. They added roughly three times as many subscribers as compared with the same period in 2019.

Vox Media is also leaning into member-only virtual events and community building to drive growth during the pandemic. “This week, we announced the launch of “Inside New York.” The new subscriber-only event series gives our readers an unfiltered behind-the-scenes look at our magazine. “We also launched Pivot Schooled, a first-of-its-kind virtual event series bringing New York’s award-winning Pivot podcast to life,” said Osnos.

“As we scale for a larger audience, we’ve remarketed our Vulture membership program to foster a digital community. We’re utilizing the program to deepen brand appreciation and grow paid subscriptions.”

How they are maintaining

While growth remains steady, both publishers are taking steps to ensure that they retain these new audiences post-pandemic. The unusual circumstances driving the growth mean that it’s difficult to predict what will happen when life starts returning to normal. Osnos and Harkin aren’t leaving anything to chance. Both are rolling out new email marketing and reader communication strategies to cement their connection with readers. 

“We’ve been working on deepening our subscribers’ relationship to our brands through onboarding and engagement campaigns. But we’ve not seen churn definitively tied to economic or editorial reasons thus far,” said Osnos. “Our largest successes for mitigating churn are often the direct results of improvements to our billing and renewal communication series. We find that transparency with matters of account and expanding our subscriber benefits with events, supplemental content, and other benefits have provided the greatest results when retaining subscribers.”

According to Harkin, The Atlantic will also emphasize communication and reader connection. “We really value the relationship with our readers. We’re constantly evolving and developing our retention plans through email welcome series and onsite experiences as well as how we talk to people throughout their life with email marketing and on social media.”

A new normal

It is unclear how long Covid-19 will be with us and which of the changes to daily life and reader habits will persist once the virus is contained. What is clear is that, in the near-term, publishers’ reliance on reader revenue will be greater than at any other time in the digital era. The work publishers do to grow subscriptions today, and to retain those subscribers as the situation evolves, will determine how well-positioned they are to survive and thrive.

As for Osnos and Harkin, both expressed the belief that the success of their efforts ultimately rests not in the hands of marketing or revenue teams, but with the quality journalism of their respective publications. As Harkin puts it, “What people ultimately subscribe to is your journalism. So, as long as the quality of your journalism is there, and the quality of your marketing reader relationships match the quality the journalism that you’re producing, you’ll have a pretty winning combination.”

Advertising | Revenue

Considering Ad Refresh? Here’s what you need to know

With challenges like ad blocking, tightening privacy regulations, and third-party cookie blocking, the past few years have been rough for digital publishers. Pressure to create incremental revenue streams and optimize existing revenue may be one reason for the revival of ad refresh. The ability to refresh ads on a page has been around for a while. But it has yet to achieve its full potential in helping publishers increase revenues.

Ad refresh is a technique that allows publishers to increase the number of ad impressions served to a user in a single session by refreshing ad sets based on preset triggers. These triggers can be based on user action (scrolling, clicking or using the search function), certain custom events, or time-based (refresh every 30, 60 or 90 seconds).

If used properly, ad refresh can increase ad revenue per session without compromising user experience or ad viewability. Why then, one may ask, is it not used universally?

Sites best suited to using ad refresh

The first reason is that ad refresh is not effective in all cases. Websites with above-average session durations are ideal candidates. These include gaming sites, educational sites, or sites with high-value niche content. Session duration is an important consideration. That’s because refreshing ads will be redundant and counterproductive if the users don’t stick around long enough to see them.

Secondly, not all networks and exchanges permit ad refresh and each has its own policy for auto-refresh. Google Ad Exchange, Rubicon, and OpenX permit automatic ad refresh, but Google AdSense does not. Publishers should keep their exchanges’ policies in mind while making decisions regarding using ad refresh.

Risks and considerations

The upside of increased overall revenue is certainly appealing. However, if improperly implemented, ad refresh can have a negative impact on your inventory and reputation.

Concerns about ad viewability

When an ad set on a page is refreshed, it is imperative that the user be able to see them. The ad must be within the user’s viewport and they need time to engage with the ads. However, several ad refresh vendors do not take viewability into account. Instead they do what is commonly known as a “blind refresh.” This can damage the viewability score of a publisher’s inventory, lower inventory value, and tarnish their reputation. A poor viewability score can cause DSPs to blacklist a publisher’s supply.

Reduction in CPMs for refreshed ads

It is important to note here that advertisers are often aware when a website is auto-refreshing ads. This can result in lower CPMs for each successive refresh, with advertisers lowering bids due to concerns about viewability. However, lower CPMs are usually more than compensated for by higher total impressions served per user session. This is why, when using ad refresh, publishers may want to consider alternative metrics for measuring their revenue growth, like Page RPM or EPMV (earnings per thousand visitors) rather than CPMs to get a more accurate representation.

Higher bandwidth usage

While ad refresh does not impact the initial page loading speed since the first set of ads is loaded as usual, auto-refreshing involves the page making new HTTP requests to the server for fresh ads based on the triggers set. These repeat requests and ad fetching consume additional data during each successive refresh.

Ad refresh best practices

The balance between revenue growth using ad refresh while maintaining a high viewability score and good UX is a delicate one. For publishers who implement it well, ad refresh is an excellent way to boost overall ad revenue. Our estimates show that, within the AdPushup network, depending on the average time-on-site and concurrent use of header bidding and bid caching, publishers could potentially increase net revenue by 20 to 40 percent.

By following these best practices, publishers can make the most out of this revenue optimization technique:

Adhere to network policies

Different networks and exchanges have their own policies on auto-refreshing ads. While some don’t allow it, others have limitations on triggers that can be used, such as a high minimum interval. Some networks may require publishers to declare if their inventory includes ad refresh units. By reading the network policy and following set parameters, publishers can steer clear of policy violations.

Appropriate use of time-based triggers

Brands and advertisers prefer that time-based triggers allow ads to remain on the page for at least 60 seconds to allow adequate viewability. Higher intervals between refreshes allow for better UX and ad engagement, which makes the inventory more valuable. Some publishers may be tempted to set lower refresh intervals of 30 seconds or less in order to serve more impressions However, we do not recommend this approach as it could mar viewability and cause CPMs to drop.

Test, test, test

Before finalizing your strategy, run A/B tests for different auto-refresh triggers and time intervals. By benchmarking results against a control setup, publishers can learn what auto-refresh iteration works best for their website, or if it even makes a difference. We recommend running these tests on a section of your website and traffic before implementing site-wide ad refresh.

Pick the right partners

There are now ad refresh solutions available in the market that take ad viewability criteria into account while refreshing ads. By partnering with ad tech vendors that offer this service without compromising on ad viewability, publishers can increase overall revenue with minimal impact on CPMs and inventory quality. 

Careless use of ad refresh in its early years had positioned it as a short-term, greedy tactic. However, this perception is changing with the availability of improved viewability measurement in the industry. As long as publishers use ad refresh while keeping in mind the objective of advertising, they can ensure that both brands and users derive value from ads being served and boost their ad revenue and inventory value in a sustainable manner.

About the author

Vishveshwar has over 10 years of experience working in editorial and marketing roles at legacy media and high-growth software companies. His work has appeared in Forbes, AdAge, TheNextWeb, Digiday, MarketingProfs, and Hongkiat. At AdPushup, he focuses on covering the developments in advertising technology.

Featured Post | Revenue

Why Skift is putting reader revenue in the pilot’s seat

Travel industry intelligence site Skift has become the latest publisher to put membership at the forefront of their business. CEO and founder Rafat Ali announced the launch of Skift Pro on Twitter, saying that “Skift is now officially a Subscription-First business information company.”

Skift joins a growing number of publishers turning to reader revenue as a way to diversify revenue streams and mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on other aspects of the business like events and advertising.

We spoke to Skift co-founder and Chief Product Officer Jason Clampet about the details of the launch, how it sits alongside its other products, and why this is such an important shift for the niche travel publisher.

Laying the foundations 

Skift Pro has been in the works for over a year. The publisher already has two existing subscription products: Skift Research, which does deep-dive reports, data and analysis on travel industry trends, and Skift Airline Weekly, a subscription product dedicated to aviation news and analysis. The two products were faring well. However, Skift had een eyeing examples from other B2B companies like Digiday and Business of Fashion, which made subscription models a more central part of their strategy to build business resilience.

The first task the team had to tackle before adding another subscription product into the mix was to bring everything into one payment platform. “We built our own database to store users and details about the payment process so that everything was seamlessly tied together,” Clampet explained. This meant that subscribers to multiple products would be able to manage their subscriptions in one place.

In the last week of February 2020, Clampet held a big team meeting where he walked everyone through Skift Pro. In particular, he told the team how excited they were to be launching it on March 16th. But March 11th would be Skift’s last day in the office.

“We decided not to launch Skift Pro at that point,” said Clampet, aware of the potential scale of lockdown disruption to the travel industry. “Instead, we did a Guardian-style contribution model. We said, “Hey, we’d love direct reader support. You can make a one time gift or a recurring gift.””

Spurred by the success of the contribution model, Skift then introduced a ‘Pay what you want’ model to their new online events and webinars, using the payment system they had built to support subscriptions the previous year. As the initial shockwaves of the pandemic settled, Skift Pro’s launch moved to the top of the agenda.

Membership benefits

Despite the initial delay, Skift’s decision to launch a membership product marks an important shift in the publisher’s relationship with its readers. Rather than simply adding another revenue stream into the mix, Skift Pro will help build business resilience and audience engagement, as well as strengthening their editorial work.

“It’s become a centerpiece of how we think about our readers and customers,” said Clampet. “Hopefully it’ll be a much more significant part of our revenue, but it’ll also allow us to tie things together better.”

Clampet believes that Skift Pro members will be more deeply engaged with the brand, from attending events to reading its analysis and reporting. In turn hopes that he and the team will be able to learn more about them. “It’s a way for us to have a better insight into who our users are, and then serve them better,” he explained.

This plays a key part in the presentation of Skift Pro as a membership product rather than a straightforward subscription. Skift Pro goes beyond just access to stories online. It includes additional content and events, as well as a custom newsletter which will start up in August, for $365 a year, or $1 a day. 

“We want it to be more than just a newsletter in your mailbox every day. It’s about being actively engaged with other things beyond just reading,” Clampet said.

Launching in a pandemic

Following the delay, deciding when was a good time to finally launch Skift Pro was a subject of much internal discussion. Skift’s other major revenue streams are from its content studio, which works with travel brands to develop bespoke content for them, and its events. Both have suffered as a result of coronavirus, making reader revenue a more urgent consideration. But the travel industry as a whole is also under immense pressure, with many furloughed or laid off.

“It’s hard to know what is a good time right now for anything,” Clampet explained. “The reality of business is that direct from consumer revenue is vital to just about any media business.”

“We also know that the people who are still at companies in Europe and Asia, which is waking up again. They need actual information to do their jobs better and make smarter decisions. We’re still here providing that, so in that sense, it is a good time [to launch].”

A new route

Skift Pro may be live, but the team aren’t resting on their laurels. Clampet’s main goal for the membership is that people are really happy about their decision after signing up, and that is going to require some changes to the product as time goes on.

“The launch is just the very first phase for us. We need to be constantly evolving the product experience,” he emphasised. “What it is right now is going to be very different from what it is a year from now, and hopefully we’ll have made a lot of smart decisions.”

This is a very important lesson that other publishers with subscription or membership products can learn from. For Skift, the launch is not the end of the road. It’s the starting point of a product which will change and grow as they focus on the reader response, and how they can best serve those needs.

Perspectives | Revenue

Fact check series, part three: What really defines a next-generation DMP

DMP 1.0: Contextual-to-audience targeting for desktop web & DFP

Since the advent of newspapers in the 17th century, digital advertising has been premised on developing and promoting content to attract audiences, and then selling contextual ads against such content. Even the arrival of online services like AOL and the disruptive nature of the web didn’t materially change the contextual nature of advertising against publisher content.

Approximately 15 years ago, digital publishing experienced a seismic shift. The capabilities afforded by web browser technologies and advancements in server-side data processing introduced audience targeting. Ad networks and technology platforms could create rules to associate consumer web surfing activity on publisher sites with behavioral attributes. These could be attached to browser cookies. And they could target those cookies with advertising on websites other than the ones where the original behaviors were observed.

Data Management Platforms (DMPs) arrived to help publishers save and organize all the data created by digital traffic and to take advantage of audience targeting.

The role of the DMP was pretty straightforward: Transform contextual desktop web activity into audience segments and pass those audience segments into a website’s adserver, most likely DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP). Life was simple in DMP 1.0.

DMP 2.0: Mobile and social and programmatic

Five years later, smartphones, social networks, and programmatic media buying shuffled the deck. A new breed of DMP company arose that specialized in audience targeting for mobile app environments. Social networks introduced their own audience targeting. And programmatic advertising ushered in the need for data pipes connected to buy-side platforms.

An important challenge was how to use data to effectively plan, activate, and analyze media campaigns across channels and platforms. This led to a focus on the mechanics of syncing IDs between platforms using in-page pixel syncs. It also led to the emergence of technologies and venture-backed companies focused on “cross device” or “device graph” technologies. The primary challenge was how to associate activity on a desktop/laptop computer with a mobile device – literally “cross device.”

Under the hood, the reality was more nuanced. When it came to desktop/laptop computers, cross-device technologies were using 3rd-party cookies in web browsers as profile identifiers. So, if a person was using two different web browsers on the same computer, it could conceivably be considered two devices. If a person deleted their 3rd-party cookies, and a new profile identifier was generated, then it would also be considered a new device.

On mobile, there were other important nuances regarding what was considered a device. Mobile web browsing was similar to desktop web browsing in terms of its reliance on cookie-based identifiers. In the mobile app environment, both Apple and Google moved towards providing OS-based solutions for provisioning consistent ad identifiers to all licensed apps on the device. Apple iOS called this IDFA. Google dubbed it GAID. It’s significant that the hardware guys, who in some cases have declared war on cookies for mobile web, have facilitated a static advertising ID for mobile.

So “cross-device” was — and is — more like “cross-ID” based on the underlying reality.

In addition, cross-device technologies introduced new vocabulary. Deterministic and probabilistic matching described how these IDs could be associated. These syncing and graphing technologies were nascent and not well integrated across the ecosystem. However, they did spotlight the need for publishers, marketers, and ecosystem participants to look beyond desktop web + DFP (DMP 1.0), and to either build, buy, or license technologies to connect data across devices and media buying platforms.

DMP 2.0 was defined by data management solutions that began to address the emergence of additional device types and media buying platforms. It was also characterized by the technologies required to connect and extend audience segments across those environments. Even back then, publishers knew that consumer data needed to be fluid and connected across platforms and partners in order to drive business forward.

DMP 3.0: The DMP is dead. long live the DMP!

Media and technology have continued to change rapidly.

On the data input side, publishers are seeing consumer 1st-party data flow into their systems from web, mobile app, email, CTV/OTT, CRM, and an assortment of smart/IoT devices. They also have the ability to access consumer behavioral and attribute data from 2nd-party and 3rd-party sources. On the output/activation side, publishers feed data into adservers, SSPs, programmatic header wrappers, analytics platforms, content optimization platforms, content management systems, data lakes/streams/rivers, and marketer platforms.

an exploding array of consumer devices and applications, are powering these data flows. Unfortunately, most were not designed to be interoperable from a data perspective. To add further complexity, browser developers such as Apple and Mozilla block (or shorten the lifespans of) different flavors of browser cookies to better safeguard consumer privacy. As a result, they make it more challenging to connect data in web environments. Hanging over these operational data challenges are regional data regulations that provide consumers with protections/controls over how their data is tracked and used.

Innovation and M&A and corporate development activity have grown in the data management space as companies look to expand their solutions. Some pure DMPs joined forces with larger martech companies and integrated into their stacks. Others maintained independence and focused on developing advanced data-driven solutions to specific challenges.

Against this backdrop, it has been increasingly difficult to define what a DMP is. Today, client types, data types, and use cases are incredibly diverse. A single acronym isn’t sufficient to capture the full scope of capabilities.

But whether a company describes itself or its solutions as part of a DMP, CDP, martech stack or other, it’s clear that effective next-generation data management technologies must provide publishers with scaled and privacy-enabled connectivity between data sources and platforms.

Who wants to live on Gilligan’s Island?

It’s surprising to see that the recent crop of DMP start-ups have developed technologies and solution strategies that focus on publisher isolation instead of publisher-to-ecosystem connectivity. They have essentially stranded publishers on their own “data islands” in structures that might not survive the next privacy or browser storm.

They encourage publishers to turn the clock back to DMP 1.0, transform contextual desktop web activity into audience segments, and pass those audience segments into a website’s adserver. These contextual DMPs don’t have any magical technologies. And the functionality that they provide are features (or sub-features) of much more complete and robust data and marketing technology platforms.

These “disconnected DMPs” completely lack a focus on the capabilities required to help publishers and their marketing partners stitch data across websites, devices, platforms, and channels. It is imperative that any modern data technology platform provides scaled data connectivity solutions. DMP start-ups lack ID graphing technologies. To the extent that they have any inter-platform connectivity, they have to rely on 3rd-party pixel syncs powered by other companies. (Something they don’t talk about publicly since it runs counter to their cookieless fiction.)

To find your people, connections are key

The challenges publishers and marketers face in a fragmented data landscape are significant … but not insurmountable. Isolating your data from the broader marketing ecosystem is not the right path forward for publishers looking to grow their businesses.

Complete, consistent, and compliant data connections will deliver greater scale and precision for brands and publishers and better experiences for consumers. Publishers need next-generation DMP solutions made for today’s digital advertising challenges and future-proofed for tomorrow’s opportunities. They need trusted solutions grounded in partnership, privacy, and a panoramic view of the consumer.

About the author

As Chief Growth Officer, Adam leads Lotame’s global marketing, product, and client success teams to support growth across customer acquisition, retention, and revenue. He joined Lotame as the Chief Marketing Officer. His diverse experience balances art and science, and includes stints as an aerospace engineer and patent attorney, plus 21 years in consumer media and marketing technology in leadership roles at Viacom Media Networks, Time Inc., Hearst, and PebblePost. Adam is co-inventor on four issued U.S. patents related to interactive video advertising technology.

Fact check series, part two: contextual targeting, audience targeting, and match rates

Fact check series, part one: the truth about “cookieless” DMPs

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